Washington,U.S.A–The U.S. Senate passed the 2012 Farm Bill today, meaning the measure is a big step closer to enactment. The Farm Bill, renewed every five years, is the largest source of funding for conservation on America’s working farmland, ranchland and private forestland. In addition to funding federal conservation and nutrition programs, the bill also authorizes risk management and other programs that influence the decisions of land managers across the country.

“The Farm Bill is the United States’ primary means for engaging farmers, ranchers and foresters in stewardship of America’s natural resources,” said Sara Hopper, agricultural policy director of Environmental Defense Fund. “The continuing economic prosperity of agriculture is critical to the nation. But it is also true that agriculture has a significant environmental footprint. It affects – and is affected by – soil health, reliable supplies of clean water, and healthy ecosystems.”

As part of an effort to reduce the federal deficit, the Senate voted to cut more than $23 billion from the Farm Bill budget over the next 10 years, including $6.4 billion from conservation programs. While these cuts will hurt conservation efforts on the ground, senators made an effort to mitigate the impact of the loss in conservation funding by including policies that will make conservation programs more effective. Specifically, the Senate bill consolidates some conservation programs and creates a stronger emphasis on leveraging additional resources from local and state governments and other partners who can assist producers in voluntary, cooperative efforts to address local, state and regional conservation priorities. Senators also voted yesterday to apply to taxpayer-funded crop insurance premium subsidies the requirements that farmers of some environmentally sensitive lands currently have to meet in order to receive other farm subsidies.

“With increasing pressures to feed a growing global population, America’s natural resources are under more demand and stress than ever before,” said Hopper. “Demand for conservation assistance for farmers already outstrips available conservation dollars. Congress must maintain and strengthen its commitment to conservation in this Farm Bill and one way to do that is through innovate partnership programs that bring conservation dollars to local communities.”

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American Jewish World Service (AJWS), an international development and human rights organization, recently released its latest report, The Time is Now for Food Aid Reform: Five Reasons Why U.S. Policies are Ripe for Reform in the Next Farm Bill .

AJWS’s paper outlines the benefits of reforming current U.S. global food aid policies as Congress debates the farm bill. In the report, AJWS lays out five changes in the current political and economic climate conducive to far-reaching policy reforms.

“The push for food aid reform is more fortuitous now than it has been for decades,” said AJWS’s director of advocacy, Timi Gerson. “If Congress seizes the opportunity, they can make bold changes that will have lasting positive impact on both American taxpayers and the millions of hungry people around the world who depend on our aid.”

According to data from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. remains the world’s largest provider of international food assistance. Although food aid alone cannot close the world hunger gap, it plays a critical role in the lives of tens of millions of individuals and their families.

U.S. food aid programs, however, are not doing the greatest good for people in need. The current one-size-fits-all approach relies too heavily on the shipping of in-kind aid from the U.S. to areas in need, instead of employing a flexible approach that includes local and regional procurement as well as cash transfers or vouchers.

The system is inefficient, with over 50 percent of taxpayer money for food aid grains wasted on subsidies to U.S. agribusiness and shipping companies. And in some cases, in-kind aid inadvertently distorts markets, undercutting local farmers who are critical to long-term sustainable food systems.

AJWS’s policy paper strikes a hopeful tone regarding the possibility of a new approach to the food aid programs in the 2012 Farm Bill. Recent small, but significant policy precedents enacted in the 2008 Farm Bill and subsequent appropriations as well as new research on the benefits of local and regional procurement (LRP), lay the groundwork for bigger structural reforms.

Beyond food aid reform’s humanitarian impact, AJWS’s report points out its relevance to the current congressional focus on fiscal responsibility. Record high food prices and budgetary pressures both increase the need for greater food aid cost effectiveness. Shifting interests and alignments among traditional supporters of the food aid status quo in the agriculture industry and among food-aid-implementing NGOs may also lower resistance to reform.

The paper contends that conditions influencing the fate of U.S. food aid policy have changed, and recent developments have created a timely opening for a politically attractive set of structural policy reforms in the next farm bill. Despite the long-running resistance to changes in U.S. food aid programs, AJWS argues that because of these changes in the political and economic context, the U.S. food aid debate is positioned at a potential turning point and the time is ripe for reform.

To read the policy paper online, please visit: http://bit.ly/z4NbiH.

American Jewish World Service
Inspired by Judaism’s commitment to justice, American Jewish World Service (AJWS) works to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world. www.ajws.org

Image Courtesy of   Boris Diakovsky / Shutterstock.com

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